


Ripped Apart

by LibraryMage



Series: Ghost from the Past [2]
Category: Star Wars: Rebels
Genre: Aftermath of Torture, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Ezra Bridger Needs a Hug, Gen, Whumptober
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-07
Updated: 2020-10-07
Packaged: 2021-03-07 19:27:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,664
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26882887
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LibraryMage/pseuds/LibraryMage
Summary: “I don’t want to keep doing this.”  His mother’s voice was soft as her hand ghosted through his hair.  “If you would just tell us where to find the fleet, I can make this stop.”“I won't,” Ezra gasped.  His throat was sore from screaming.  “I-I’ll die first.”----Ezra has a painful talk with the Fourth Sister.
Relationships: Ezra Bridger & Mira Bridger
Series: Ghost from the Past [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1893082
Comments: 1
Kudos: 37





	Ripped Apart

**Author's Note:**

> Whumptober 2020 Prompt: support
> 
> tw: references to torture, parental death

The void tugged at the edges of his mind. It was so inviting, so tempting, like cool water spilling across the surface of his brain. He went limp, waiting to be pulled down into blissful unconsciousness.

There was a quiet _hiss_ and the sharp, biting cold around his wrists and ankles vanished. Ezra pitched forward until a pair of warm arms caught him. They pulled him close until his head was resting on someone's shoulder. A slick, cold _wrongness_ slid down Ezra’s spine at the touch. He squirmed, trying to wriggle out of that nauseating embrace, but he was too weak.

“No,” he muttered. “Let go.” _I don’t need you. I_ hate _you. No. No, I don’t._

“I don’t want to keep doing this.” His mother’s voice was soft as her hand ghosted through his hair. “If you would just tell us where to find the fleet, I can make this stop.”

“I won't,” Ezra gasped. His throat was sore from screaming. “I-I’ll die first.”

His mother sighed, and Ezra could have sworn he sensed a trace of regret flitting through her mind before that steady, cold determination returned. She shifted, drawing Ezra’s arm around her chest as she slid her own arm across his shoulders, letting him lean most of his weight on her. Ezra could barely keep his feet under him as she led him from the interrogation chamber, back down the corridor to his cell. There no stormtroopers to guard him this time. He wouldn’t make it two feet if he tried to run away.

When they reached the cell, his mother lowered him to the floor. As Ezra slumped against the cold durasteel, he breathed a sigh of relief. At least now, she’d leave him alone.

But she didn’t. Instead, she sat on the floor beside him, drawing him closer until his head was resting on her lap. At the feeling of her warm hand gently stroking his hair, all the tears Ezra had held back as he was tortured began to fall.

None of this was fair. All of it was so horrifically, disgustingly _wrong_. With every touch of her hand to his head, a new knot tied in Ezra’s stomach. Just hours ago, those hands had been pinning him to a table, strapping him down as he fought to get away. Years ago, they had soothed him just like this when he was hurt or sick or upset.

“Ezra.” His mother’s voice – _no, no she wasn’t that person anymore, she was just an Inquisitor now_ – was as soft as her touch. “Everything will be easier if you just stop fighting me.”

The knots in Ezra’s stomach drew tighter, making him want to throw up. What she was saying sounded nothing like the mother he remembered. She always told him they _had_ to fight, that no matter how hard it was, they couldn’t just give up while the Empire was hurting so many people. What had they done to her to make her turn her back on everything she’d stood for?

“I hate seeing you hurt like this,” she said, her hand going still, warm and steady against the side of Ezra’s head.

“Well, you didn’t have to do it,” Ezra snapped. Of all the things to say to him right now.

“Ezra –”

“Don’t.”

His arms shaking with the effort, Ezra pushed himself away from her, sitting up and slumping against the wall behind him. He pulled his knees up against his chest and hugged his arms around them, avoiding her gaze.

“I don’t want to hear it,” he muttered. He couldn’t take whatever excuses she was about to make for what she was doing. She’d sacrificed herself to speak out against the Empire, and now she was torturing him for the very same evil that had ripped their family apart. All those years he’d spent on his own, he had told himself his parents were heroes, that they’d died fighting for people who couldn’t stand up for themselves. And now… now, those illusions had dissolved into ash. Now, his mother was just another cog in the Empire’s machine.

“I’m trying to help you, Ezra,” his mother said. “If you just tell me where to find the rebel fleet, you won't have to share their fate. You’d have another chance. You could join us and –”

“No!” Ezra growled, his hands curling into fists. “I’ll _never_ become an Inquisitor. I don’t care what you do to me.”

He squeezed his eyes shut, focusing on the feeling of his nails digging into his palms as he drew in a long, deep breath.

“I will never stop fighting,” he said. His eyes stung as the tears threatened to return to them. “Because that’s what you and Dad and my new family taught me.”

“You will.” She didn’t sound angry as she said it. She sounded almost _defeated_. Broken. “In the end, you only have two choices. Let them grind you down into dust, or give in while there are still pieces of yourself to hold onto.”

Finally, Ezra looked up at her. He could sense the pain behind the words, powerful enough to send sharp threads of sympathy piercing through his anger.

“Mom,” he said, the bitterness evaporating from his voice. “Listen to yourself. This isn’t you. Please, just leave with me. We can get out of here if we work together.”

“There’s no escape from this,” she said. “Not for either of us.”

Ezra dropped his gaze back to floor, clenching his jaw to keep it from trembling. No matter how much he begged, she wasn’t going to help him. His own kriffing _mother_ was going to keep torturing him until he broke and became a warped version of his former self, a tool of the Empire, just like her.

“Ezra, please.” Her hand rested on his shoulder and something inside Ezra snapped. He slapped her hand away, a pure wave of anger _screaming_ through the Force. It slammed into her, sending her flying into the opposite wall.

Ezra went perfectly still as he realized what he’d just done. The sticky, clinging tendrils of darkness still tugged at him. They coiled around him like ropes twisting around his limbs, prodding at him as they tried to get him to let them in again.

There was a flicker of movement at the edge of his vision and Ezra flinched. He could sense his mother’s anger as she picked herself up, boiling beneath the surface even as her face settled into an emotionless mask. When he was strapped to that table, he’d been angry, confused, in bitter denial that it was really happening. But now, for the first time in his life, he found himself afraid of his mother.

“Ezra.” Her voice was back to the harsh snap it had been as she’d entered the interrogation room. “If I can't get you to see reason, then they’ll hand you over to someone who can. The other Inquisitors will do much worse to you than I ever will.”

Ezra pulled his knees tighter against his chest, closing his eyes once again to hold back the tears that welled up in the corners of his eyes.

“Eight years out on the streets couldn’t break me,” he said. “What makes you think any of you can do it?”

His words were met with silence. He opened his eyes once again to see the Inquisitor who’d once been his mother watching him, her eyes narrowed thoughtfully.

“I’ll give you a few hours to think it over,” she said. As she turned and stalked toward the door, Ezra found himself calling out to her.

“Wait,” he said. She paused, and for a moment, Ezra was sure she would ignore him and leave anyway. But slowly, she turned back to face him.

“What happened to Dad?” he asked. “Is he here? Are they using him against you?”

“Your father is dead.” That deep, burning pain surged through the Force once again as she said it. “I killed him myself.”

Ezra’s eyes widened as he stared up at her. She wouldn’t. She would never do something like that.

Then again, he’d never thought she would torture her own son, either.

“I don’t want to have to do the same to you.”

Now the tears _did_ return, slowly leaking from the corners of Ezra’s eyes. It was as if he was looking at a stranger wearing his mother’s face and using her voice.

“W-would you really do that?” he asked, his voice shaking.

Silence stretched out between them for far too long. With each second that passed, Ezra’s heart hammered, waiting for that inevitable _yes_. He shouldn’t have asked. She’d just coldly tortured him for hours. She’d murdered his father. He should know that someone who could do that would be willing to kill him. When she finally spoke, her voice was barely more than a whisper, so quiet Ezra almost missed it.

“No.”

Ezra blinked, hugging his arms tighter around his knees as he tensed every muscle in his body in an attempt to keep himself from shaking.

“But the others won't hesitate if it comes to that.”

With that, she left the cell. Ezra stared at the door, desperately wanting to call out to her, to beg her to come back. But there was no point, was there? She wasn’t going to let him go, and nothing he could say to her would make a difference.

Heavy sobs wracked Ezra’s body as he rested his forehead on his knees, curling in tightly on himself. It shouldn’t hurt so much. For nearly eight years, he’d known that he couldn’t count on his parents to come and save him, that he had to fend for himself. But seeing her again, knowing that she could unlock the door and let him escape if she wanted to, tore Ezra’s heart in half.

One of his parents was alive. She could save him this time. And she wouldn’t.

Ezra was still on his own.


End file.
